News about Demetrios of Scepsis

In the last volume of ZPE 194 (2015) Marco Perale and Stefano Vecchiato published a new article on P.Oxy. 5094, where Demetrios seems to be quoted among other authorities. The article is divided into three parts.

A first part gives a summary on the scholarly discussion which fragment 1 raised. The preserved evidence suggests that the passage belonged to a discussion about the paternity of Hecabe, in which Demetrios is quoted for having known an additional hexameter line about the issues.

The second part of the article, which is the main part, consists in a new palaeographical analysis of fragment 4, which leads to an attempt to reconstitute the mythographical background of the deciphered elements and provides new readings for the preserved lines. At the beginning of the fragment a further author seems to be quoted (Araethus of Tegea). Furthermore, if this reading is correct, the mention of this author points to a discussion about Arcadian matters, as he is known to have written an Arcadica. Such a hypothesis could also be confirmed by the fact that the name of Phylonome, who is the mother of the two mythological rulers of Arcadia, occurs in the following line. This, together with other elements from the remaining lines, suggests that the basic arrangement of the preserved comment may have followed the outline of a genealogical presentation of the topic.

In the last part the two authors reconsider the hypothesis, stated in the publication of the editio princeps, that the fragment could be an extract from a work by Apollodorus of Athens. They evaluate the pros and cons, but have finally to acknowledge that this attribution has to remain a hypothesis. Both, our incomplete knowledge of Apollodorus works as well as the many lacunas that still remain in the understanding of P.Oxy. 5094, prevents them to go any further.